


Sometimes you still dance like she asked you to

by telekinesiskid



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Kinda, POV Second Person, Slavery, Stockholm Syndrome, Suggestive Themes, ehh this is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 22:15:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5719003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid/pseuds/telekinesiskid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Going off the 'what if Pearl was White Diamond's Pearl' theory. </p><p>Pearl remembers her "slave" days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes you still dance like she asked you to

**Author's Note:**

> Because I saw this theory and I LIKED IT and also thought, what if Pearl had a hard time trying to understand/get over her past :(

You remember your slave days. Well, you didn’t really think of yourself as a slave back then – ‘slave’ is more of a retrospective term Rose Quartz applied to your earlier career, before she ‘liberated’ you. Before you even met her, you didn’t think you needed liberating. You were well aware that you were under the full control and authority of White Diamond, but so was everyone else in the court, in the galaxy. You weren’t a slave. You were privileged, charmed. You – yes, _you_ – out of all the numerous Pearls created and destroyed every day, were chosen to sit beside White Diamond. You were special. You were someone, or at the very least something. You were useful, poised, flawless, reverent _, desired_.

Rose Quartz still tries to convince you that you were a single misdemeanour away from being shattered, like all the rest.

Your slave days didn’t entail all that much. Other Pearls – almost identical to you, but not nearly as pretty and polished – would clean and run errands and handle correspondence and carry out any number of mundane secretarial tasks your Diamond would set them. She’d give her orders and you would watch them filter down, from one level of hierarchy to the next. You’d watch one manager’s amity with a higher rank turn to hostility with a lower. Grateful for the message, loathsome in the delivery. You would just sit like marble, with your bare feet tucked underneath you, your hands folded demurely one over the other, and you would watch them. And when you weren’t watching, you were dancing.

Often White Diamond would take small breaks from her rule and tell you to dance for her. You always did, without hesitation. You were all perfect form and grace – you still are – and you made even a little show out of your stretches before your main performance. You held out your slender curved arms and raised one slender pointed leg well above your head and asked – you always asked, never demanded – that an attendant fetch a musician for you, because you preferred these performances with music. You unravelled your wrap-around skirt and let it fall to the silk cushion that had been seating you.

Once you had your music and your Diamond’s attention, you danced. Each and every dance was impeccable and exhilarating and completely improvised, and while it left every other attendant in her quarters breathless, your Diamond never made such an obvious and undignified display. But you knew that she liked you. She never cut your performances short, even as you lost yourself in the music and cut a little into her valuable time. Even if she ordered you to dance while she was still half-preoccupied with a document that needed her revisions, you always had her complete and undivided attention by the time you stopped.

You remember, once – quite a few times, actually – a warrior would barge in, unannounced, unexpected, to declare yet another successful colonisation, and the shock would force you to miss a beat and lose balance, maybe even twist an ankle. You remember that, later, your Diamond would suggest to those warriors’ superiors that they ought to be shattered and have their shards thrown to the cold, empty void of space. You don’t know what ever became of those warriors. But you never knew of anyone who directly disobeyed a Diamond’s orders.

 _Everyone’s replaceable to them,_ Rose still often reminds you when she catches you pining. _Especially Pearls._

It’s a little funny; you witnessed so many causalities and brutalities in your time, but you never seemed to care. You were never so affected. You watched your Diamond obliterate so many dangerous and destructive gems – gems who threatened the status quo – but she never hurt you. She was always so soft-spoken with you, so gentle. Your very presence calmed her storms.

She told you she loved you. You honestly believed that. She told you that you were perfect – “the most beautiful little Pearl in the galaxy” were her exact words – and you honestly meant it when your eyes teared up each time and you breathed back, “thank you, my Diamond.”

Your performances were mostly public. But often she asked for private dances too, in her chambers, when she chose to relieve herself of her duties for a while. She loved to dress you up. All of the little outfits she picked out for you varied in shape and texture and colour, but they all boiled down to the same basic leotard, with sheer features here or there. Sometimes she put you in shimmering skirts that just seemed to drip off your thighs as you showed her how flexible you really were. She painted you a pretty aqua and white palette and accessorised you with fashioned rare elements, found only on colonised planetoids. She dolled you up. She pinched your tiny hands between her fingertips and danced you around the room herself, like a puppet.

There was no music for those dances. No one else was allowed in her chambers but you.

Even thinking about it now, it still sends shivers down your spine.

You wonder if it’s silly to still remember it all so fondly, as if it weren’t slavery. Apparently – according to your leader – you’ve long since been replaced, since Rose Quartz ‘liberated’ you and took you and a dozen other Pearls from your home. She tells you that White Diamond wouldn’t have mourned for you. She wouldn’t even have bothered to look for you. She would’ve just put in an order and another Pearl, identical to you, would’ve walked in and sat quiet and pretty in the crook of her palm, like she were you. Like there was never a skipped beat and nobody noticed a difference. That you were gone, forgotten.

You can’t really believe it. You smile and nod at Rose Quartz, but it’s only to make her stop talking.

You stand alone from all the other rebel Pearls. You watch them from afar. They’re talking, smiling, laughing, brandishing swords – like they think they’re _actually_ well-built warrior Quartz, and it’s all a little bit hilarious and sad. Though, some small part of you wishes that you could be as happy as them that you were set free, released from your cosy prison. Your ‘gilded cage’, as Rose Quartz calls it.

It never felt like a cage to you. At least, it didn’t for very long.

You don’t train with them. You used to think that that was your choice, but now you’re not quite sure. It was only the flourish and elegance and poise of sword fighting that drew you in – how your effortless dancing provided you with a relatively good advantage. But you don’t touch swords. You held one once, and your hand shook so much that you almost dropped it on your own foot. You told Rose Quartz, tone terse, because it shouldn’t even bear mentioning, that Pearls just aren’t built for fighting. You weren’t asked back to train after that.

But maybe you will, for no reason other than because you can.

You still dance, on your own, under the shade of a cherry blossom tree that you’ve rather taken a liking to. You admire the flutter and fall of the little petals in the wind, and pink – you’re slowly learning – is such a pretty colour that you were never able to fully appreciate. It was never a part of your palette. It’s funny to think that now you can wear whatever you want, including pink. You’ve seen many moons now and you’re still getting used to the fact that no one will tell you what to wear or where to stand or when to talk or what to do.

But it’s a little nice, you admit, to dance on your own terms.


End file.
